The Children of Lindis
by Kallios the Scholar
Summary: Lindis, a woman going mad. Her children, hoping to cure her with elvish medicine, accompany Strider and the hobbits to Imladris. But they carry treasures taken from a Barrow-wight, and their adventure is only just beginning. Not a 10th Walker
1. The Barrow downs, Pt 1

Disclaimer: I own nothing except Padrien, Gemon, and the computer that is suffering with ill grace through my fanfic-author career. Everything else belongs to whoever owns the rights to LOTR now that the Great Tolkien is dead.

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><p><em>Three years ago on the Barrow-downs...<em>

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><p>"Oh brother mine, but what a <em>talk<em> mother and I shall have with you when you are found," Padrien muttered, stepping off from the Road. The girl glanced up at the morning Sun, squinting her hazel eyes for a moment as she stared directly at it for a shred of a second. Reckoning her position she began walking southwest, heading toward the Barrow-downs.

"A talk, brother dear, that shall consist of willow switches on your hide," Padrien added quietly. The girl was perhaps sixteen or so, tall for her age and as lanky as a fourteen-year-old boy, with brown hair and freckles. There was a patch of peeling sunburn on her nose. She wore her brown hair in a braid, and of her clothing she wore a linen shift and over that, a brown woolen dress and a green cloak made of the same material. The cloak was secured at her throat with a crude but brightly burnished copper brooch. Her boots were well made, of leather that had been blacked and shined. The polish would repel water and keep her feet dry. Over her shoulder was a bag containing several loaves of slightly stale bread and a small block of salty yellow cheese, as well as a full waterskin and three apples.

Padrien rubbed at her face and mentally cursed as she continued walking. She should have been paying better attention to her younger brother, Gemon, when she'd had the chance. Gemon loved to listen to the tales of the Rangers that came to Bree. He was a dreamer, her brother, who wanted to travel to Dale when he grew older. But for now, when he was only eleven winters old, he was willing to settle for "borrowing" Bill Ferny's pony and riding out on an adventure – straight to the Barrow-downs, where there were stories of treasure hoards guarded by the undead souls of their masters.

Padrien continued walking, muttering to herself about what she was going to do with her younger brother once he was found. The morning was chill, but quickly warmed into a pleasant day. The girl took off her cloak and bundled it under her arm, taking the brooch off and pinning it to her dress out of habit so that it wouldn't be lost by some error. She continued walking for several hours, and the Sun rose higher in the sky.

The land became hillier and the trees faded behind Padrien. The turf was green and springy underfoot, with all the grass quite short. There were no trees or brooks, but she heard the mournful calls of strange birds. The sky was blue with wisps of white clouds. Up ahead there was a wall, tumbled down in some places with grass growing around the fallen grey stones. In the places where it still stood the wall was steep, made of piled stones and with moss growing in the crevices between the rocks. Padrien climbed through one of the gaps and found that on the other side of the ruined wall was a deep dike. Grumbling to herself, the girl climbed down it carefully and made her way up the further side, then fought her way through the tangle of bushes that grew on its edge.

The Bree girl continued walking, occasionally humming a tune to herself. There was no wind and the day was slightly too warm for her liking, making her sweat in her wool dress. Up ahead the land grew hillier and hillier, and as the day progressed Padrien began to see standing stones atop the mounds. There were rings of them, or trios, or simply a monolith. Some were pillars that looked like grey fingers pointing up at the sky, some merely lumps of rock, and every once in awhile she would see a gateway: two pillars of stone standing close together, with another slab of stone laid over them like a lintel over a doorway.

Padrien continued her trek. It was noon now, and she had gotten neither sight nor sound of her brother's passing. She sat atop one of the mounds and ate lunch there, sitting comfortably and with her back to the cool bulk of one of the pillars. Her meal consisted of one apple and half of the cheese, with the rest saved for later – after she had found her brother.

"Gemon! Gemon, where are you?" Padrien tried calling. She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted this several times, but the sound of her voice seemed to rudely break the eerie silence that lay over the Downs. She felt as though she was disturbing someone… or some _thing_. The girl banished the thought quickly, however. She did not believe in bogey-stories, did not believe in them At All. But despite her firm reasoning Padrien did not shout her brother's name again, and continued on in relative silence – silence broken only by whatever tune she might hum, or the soft mutterings that she spoke to herself.

At three o'clock the Bree girl came to a tall hill with a doorway of stone made in its base, almost like it was a hole of the halflings. However, the doorway was blocked by a slab of stone that had been somehow put into place. There were strange runes carved into the lintel. Padrien herself had no knowledge of lettering, but the shapes looked different from the ones she usually saw, and so she assumed (correctly) that they were not of the language commonly written in Bree, but were instead the words of the people who had erected the standing stones and built tombs under the hills for their kings.

Padrien spent a few moments examining the runes and the doorway, but then climbed the hill and looked around. The mound she was standing atop of was the tallest in the area, and had a ring of short, squat stones at its top. The tallest of the stones came a little higher than her waist. Setting her bag and bundled cloak on the ground, she clambered atop the stone with some difficulty. She crouched for a moment, then straightened carefully and regained her balance. Once she was sure that she wouldn't fall, Padrien shaded her eyes with one hand and looked around, hoping for some sign of her brother.

To the West, suddenly, the Bree girl saw a dim flash. Her eyes snapped to the direction of the flash, and she saw it again. Far to the West, standing atop another standing stone, was a small dark figure. The figure was holding something in its hand, and waving. There were a few more flashes, and Padrien remembered that her brother had taken a knife from the kitchen with him on his adventure. A small knife, sharpened and polished until its blade was quite bright.

"_GEEEMONNN!_" Padrien called, waving her arms wildly to show that she had seen the signaling. Filled with elation, she felt no eeriness for shouting in the Barrow-downs and whooped for joy as she climbed down from the stone. Grabbing her bag and cloak, she ran down the hill and up another, heading in the direction of her brother. After climbing a few more of the steep hills, however, she grew tired and slowed again to a walk. But new determination filled her as she trekked to where she had seen her brother.

"Just stay where you are, Gemon," she whispered to herself. "I'll find you."

Another hour passed and Padrien's resolve began to wane. She would climb tall hills and stand on top of the stones, searching all around, but she never again caught sight of the figure she presumed to be Gemon. She did her best to go in the direction that she thought his location to be in, but after a time all the mounds and stones took on a look of sameness: she could not tell one from the other easily, but there were a few that seemed quite similar to each other and she began to suspect that she was walking in circles.

Evening drew on and the Sun began to sink in the west, growing ruddier as time passed. Padrien nibbled a loaf of bread from her bag, but found she had no appetite. Her wandering (for that was truly what it was) in the Barrow-downs grew more urgent. A brother lost in the daytime was a small thing, but a brother lost at night was something else – something that frightened her. Barrow-wights may be the stuff of stories, but wolves were not and she feared for her brother. She called for him more often, and in her voice was an note of urgency that grew stronger as the light dimmed and the world darkened.

It grew colder as well, and Padrien donned her cloak again and fastened it tightly. Out of the hollows in the Downs there rose a thick mist which crept over the green land, its white tendrils obscuring everything from view. The fog was cold and damp, and Padrien would draw her cloak closer about her and shiver. It was dark and she could see little, for though the Moon was full its light was hidden by the mist.

The fog muffled all sound, and when the Bree girl chose to call out her brother's name the sound of her voice was lonely and plaintive. Eventually she stopped calling and made her way up a small hill where there was a ring of short, stumpy stones. Sitting down in the ring, she shivered and waited. The mist covered her cloak with dew and dampened her hair. Her skin felt cold and clammy, and she wished for heavier clothes. There was no sound, no change in scenery. It was as though the little hilltop was an island in a sea of grey nothingness that was steadily growing darker as night descended. A wolf howled, its voice a dirge, and Padrien jumped and bit her lip to stop from yelping.

Every sound (and those were few and far between) had the Bree girl nervously twisting in her seat on the hilltop, anxiously trying to find the source of the noise. Every flicker of movement had her head swiveling, eyes probing the gathering gloom as she tried to find the source of that, too. She bit her lip and drew her hood up over her head, nervously peering out at the world and hoping to go unnoticed. It was quite dark now, and though Padrien was not afraid of the dark itself she feared the creatures that lurked within it. Her mind, over-imaginative, began to conjure up images of dark monsters creeping up the sides of the hill toward her, red eyes glowing faintly. The monsters took on the shape of wolves, and Padrien fancied that she could hear the sounds of their paws on the turf.

A horse whinnied softly.

Padrien jumped in surprise and stifled a yelp. Straining her ears, she made out the soft thuds of a horse's hooves on the short grass of the Barrow-downs. The beast couldn't be far away, no farther than the base of the hill. It may have been Bill Ferny's pony, with Gemon riding its back. The boy had a love of horses and would have ridden the pony if at all possible. Perhaps he was searching for her in the fog. He was probably just as lost as she was. They'd have no way of going home to Bree, of course, but at least the fog-bound Downs would be less frightening with her brother to keep her company.

"Gemon?" Padrien called out, and she could not keep the tremble from her voice. "Brother? Is that you?"

There was no answer, but the horse snorted once. Then the silence descended again and there was no more noise.

Padrien hesitated for several long moments, fear warring with curiosity and concern. Slowly, she moved from her hiding place and came down the hill. She moved in a crouch, not wanting to stand tall and grope blindly through the dimness, and descended the gentle slope with caution.

"Gemon?" she asked again, softly.

There were the soft thuds of the horse's hooves in the darkness, and suddenly a shape loomed out of the fog: the outline of an equine head, merely darkness layered upon a darker darkness. Padrien came toward the small horse and reached out to it, her chilled and damp fingers encountering horsehair and a tangled mane. With an almost visible relaxing of her muscles she felt some of her fear flow away. The pony (for upon closer inspection the beast was too little to be a horse) swung its head around to her and lipped at the edge of her cloak. Padrien smiled in the darkness and hugged the horse's neck, ignoring its damp hair. The pony breathed on her face, and its warm breath smelled like grass.

All of a sudden the pony tensed. Padrien, reacting to the animal's unease, felt herself growing wary as well. She glanced around, but of course all that could be seen around the two of them was the dark mist. The horse stepped sideways and snorted again, tossing its head. Not wanting to get her toes trodden on, the Bree girl took a cautious step backwards and away from the agitated little horse. The pony became increasingly worried, sidestepping numerous times and snorting.

The temperature dropped while Padrien watched the pony. It was slow enough that she didn't notice the change immediately, but quickly enough that in a matter of minutes her breath was fogging in front of her face and her nose and ears were numb with cold.

Then there was a breath of wind, icy and cold. Upon its touch the pony bolted, giving a shrill neigh before its departure and quickly vanishing into the dissipating mist. Soon, even though the wind was dispelling the fog, the pony was lost to the darkness. Padrien watched the place where it had vanished, but the pony did not return.

"Heeelp!" someone called. A boy's voice, a child's voice. Coming from far away.

"Gemon!" Padrien called, wheeling in the direction of the sound. "Gemon!"

"Padrien!" Gemon called, and his voice was forlorn and distant. "Padrien, help!" The Bree girl began to run in the direction of her little brother, scrambling up the hills and tumbling down their sloping sides. Her cloak streamed out behind her and the wind was cold and harsh on her face. "Gemon!" she called again.

"Pad – " Gemon began to call, but the word was ended and a long, shrill scream took its place which was abruptly cut off.

Padrien kept running, calling frantically for her brother. The last of the mist was blown away, and the Moon and stars appeared in the sky. Color-leaching moonlight gave some illumination, and the Bree girl kept running in the direction of where she had heard her brother's voice. She ran over a hill and tripped over a short stone no higher than her ankle, going head over heels down the steep slope of the hill. Somehow her brooch was torn from her cloak, or else the garment slipped off of her as she fell, but either way the cloak came free of her and settled on the slope of the hill. Padrien lost hold of her bag, and that too fell for a short time before it came to rest. The Bree girl continued tumbling until she reached the base of the hill, where she lay sprawled on her back.

Save for some bruises and a few knocks on her head, Padrien was uninjured. She got to her feet quickly and looked around. "Gemon, where are you?" she called into the darkness.

"Here," whispered a voice that was not her brother's, and in front of Padrien there appeared a pair of white eyes which glowed with a pale and unhealthy light. The Bree girl screamed at the sight of them, and the eyes seemed to burn brighter in response. Then a hand more cold than snow and more bony than a skeleton's grasped her arm, and a chill spread through her body more quick than thought. Blackness consumed her.

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><p>Ergh, I don't know what to say. Just insert some shameless review-begging one-liner here and you'll get the gist of the message.<strong><br>**


	2. The Barrow downs, Pt 2

Disclaimer: Again, I own nothing except my OCs.

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><p><em>Three years ago on the Barrow-downs...<em>

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><p>Padrien's eyes slowly drifted open. The first thing she was aware of was coldness at her back and the fact that her hair had come out of its braid. The next thing she was aware of was that she was lying on a stone slab in a small dark cavern heaped with treasure. Her hands had been folded across her chest, and someone had changed her into a dress of fine white linen. There was a fine golden chain around her neck set with shining dark stones, bracelets of fine gold upon her wrists, as well as rings of the same metal upon her fingers and a cold and heavy circlet upon her brow.<p>

The Bree girl had a coil of dread piled in the pit of her stomach, a nearly overwhelming terror of what lay in the near future. The cavern was illuminated with a sickly green light that came from no lantern that she could see, and the air was musty and stale – as though it had not been breathed by living things for a very long time. She was almost paralyzed by fear of what lay ahead, and no wonder.

For Padrien was in a the burial vault of a Barrow-wight.

There arose a cold murmuring, a muttered hiss from somewhere near. Slowly turning her head to the side she saw that the chamber was part of a long tunnel, and that the noise came from somewhere further down and out of sight. It was an old voice, a hateful voice, a voice that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end and a shiver crawl up her spine.

The Bree girl felt paralyzed, the way a rabbit will become paralyzed with fright and unable to move as a weasel or fox comes closer and closer and closer. Frozen in place with fear – until it was too late and there was no escape to be had. She listened to the cold murmuring becoming stronger and louder, gradually forming into words. But the words were perhaps worse than the mutterings, for they were dark and dooming:

_Cold be hand and heart and bone,_

_And cold be sleep under stone._

Padrien bit back a whimper, biting her tongue until she tasted blood. The pain seemed to jolt her a little out of her stupor, and her hand twitched upon the white linen dress that she wore. She felt the soft material, more fine than any cloth she had ever worn before. Her hand twitched again, fingers going over the neckline of the dress and finding one of the precious stones attached to the necklace that she now wore. The stone was smooth and cool to the touch of her fingers.

_Never more to wake on stony bed,_

_Never, til the Sun fails and the Moon is dead._

The voice of the Barrow-wight increased in volume, and Padrien found that she could move her other hand as well. Her toes twitched and flexed, and she found that she was barefoot and her boots were gone. Her lovely boots, made from ox leather and polished over the course of many hours, blacked until they shone. Blacked with wood ash collected from the hearth mixed with melted tallow. She had rubbed the polish into the leather boots with an old rag, and her fingers had been blackened as well. But she hadn't minded that, because having shiny boots was worth it and Padrien was a little bit vain. But the Barrow-wight had gone and stolen her _boots_. Her boots, her lovely soft and well-used boots which she had spent _hours_ polishing.

The anger at having her footwear stolen seemed to break some of the Barrow-wight's hold over her, and Padrien found that she could move somewhat. She moved her arms and legs and found them stiff and cold, for it was unnaturally chill in the Barrow-wight's chamber. Her nose and ears were numb, as were her toes and fingers. She flexed them and continued looking around, the panic growing again in the back of her mind. She sensed that something terrible was going to happen when the Barrow-wight finished its chant, and she did not want to find out.

Her head turned in a direction that she had not looked before, and she found her brother lying beside her.

Gemon was lying there, clothed in a white kilt and white robes that were made of the same fine linen as her own dress was. He, too, was adorned with gold and jewels. There was a short sword lying beside him, and a shield at his feet. His woolen cap was missing from his head and his dark brown hair spread about his face, nearly touching his shoulders. His face was pale as snow and his lips were blue, and for a moment Padrien thought that he was dead. But then the Bree girl saw the slow rising and falling of his chest, and she realized that Gemon breathed.

_Til the dark lord lifts his hand_

_Over dead sea and withered land._

With those final words the horrid voice of the Barrow-wight fell silent. Padrien reached over and grasped her brother's arm, finding it cold to the touch. She squeezed hard in an attempt to rouse him, and when that failed she grasped his shoulder and shook it hard. Still, Gemon did not wake from his death-like sleep.

All of a sudden there was a scrabbling, scraping sound behind Padrien. The Bree girl's breath caught in her throat, and she cautiously raised herself up on one arm and looked behind her, in the direction that the noise came from. Creeping down the tunnel was a long thin arm, its grey-white skin stretched taught over bones and the nails on the ends of its fingers hooked, dirty yellow claws. It walked on its fingers toward the slab of stone where Padrien and Gemon were lying, heading toward the hilt of a long sword that lay horizontally behind their heads.

Panic seized the girl for several long moments as she watched the hand and arm of the Barrow-wight come closer and closer. She wanted to flee, and an image danced behind her eyes of herself running over the dark hills of the Barrow-downs, leaving her brother to die but herself running free. For a moment the vision seemed so close that she wanted to weep, and she could almost feel the nighttime breeze ruffling her hair – but then the illusion of such a thing faded, and the Bree girl was left with nothing but darkness and fear.

The hand came near to the hilt of the sword, and Padrien watched it with her heart thudding in her chest. But then Gemon stirred slightly, moaning softly as though in pain. His brow wrinkled as though in concentration, but then the spell of the Barrow-wight overcame him again and he became once more as though dead. The girl's eyes darted to her brother for a moment, her gaze drawn by the soft sound, and some of the fear in her heart seemed to clear away as mist on a bright summer morning. The hand of the Barrow-ghost crept closer, and Padrien grasped a handful of her brother's fine white robe. She watched as the long and bony fingers of the undead spirit curled around the hilt of the long-bladed sword, and then she jumped up with a shout (voiced partly from fear) onto the stone table and dragged her brother from it. The white linen tore in her hands as she dragged Gemon off of the stone table, but he fell to the dirt floor and was out of the immediate reach of the Barrow-wight.

In the sickly green light of the Barrow the eyes of the Wight were like the twin flames of cold and distant winter stars, burning with inhuman rage. Its bony hands gripped the hilt of the sword, and it appeared as a specter to Padrien, a ghost with flaming eyes and pale hands and arms, its body and head composed of cold black mist that levitated above the ground, legless. It hissed, though it had no mouth or tongue that the Bree girl could see, and Padrien's blood ran cold in her veins at the sound.

The Barrow-wight raised the sword above its head and brought the blade slashing down in a great arc, and it would have cloven the Bree-girl in two if she had not dove to the side at the last moment. She landed awkwardly, bruising her hip, but quickly sprang to her feet again. She breathed hard, and her heart thudded in her chest. The ghost turned its downward slash into a horizontal one, its sword reaching out for her. Padrien leaped atop the stone slab again and grabbed the shield that had lain at her brother's feet, the brightly lacquered wood cold and heavy in her hands. She threw it at the Wight like a discus and too up the short sword, yanking it out of its scabbard. The stout blade gleamed dully in the witchfire-light of the Barrow, and Padrien prayed that it was sharp.

The sword of the Barrow-wight reached out for her again, and Padrien awkwardly held the little sword in both hands and blocked the stroke above her head, wrists and arms left jarred from the force she encountered. The sword of the undead spirit passed through the iron of her own sword like a hot knife through butter, and the severed end fell to the stone altar with a clatter. Padrien stared at the piece of iron lying next to her bare foot, incredulous, and the hope that she had nurtured in her heart of defeating the ghost wilted like an early flower under the onslaught of frost. The Barrow-wight hissed in triumph, making Padrien's attention snap back to the matter at hand. It slashed at her again, and having no other route the Bree girl leaped _toward_ the evil ghost, holding her half of the sword in front of her and thrusting it into the black mist between the Wight's burning eyes.

Immediately there was a shriek, and the cavern was plunged into darkness. The eerie, sickly green light had not been much by way of illumination, but at least she had been able to see her surroundings. Now that was gone, and the darkness was complete and total. Padrien stumbled blindly, running into the cold earthen wall of the burial vault. The hilt of the broken blade slipped from her fingers. Soon there was a crash and a scrabbling, like someone falling into a heap of metal and struggling to right themselves again. "Padrien! Padrien!" called a familiar voice, and the Bree girl swiftly came to her feet. She could see nothing in the darkness.

"Gemon?" she asked. Someone stumbled into her, and then she felt her brother's arms encircle her in an embrace.

"How are we alive?" Gemon asked when he pulled away from her. "The men of Angmar came in the night and met us unprepared, and we... No, wait – that cannot be true. What has happened, and where are we?"

Before Padrien could voice a reply there was a snarl in the darkness, and the Barrow-wight's burning eyes appeared again. They glowed with a rage that surpassed any anger it had displayed before, and the twin orbs flamed with a malicious white fire. The two siblings instinctively shrank from it and swiftly backed away.

In the darkness Padrien's foot caught upon a strap of leather, and she swiftly fell backwards. When she tried to stand again her foot remained entangled and sent her falling again, and she reached blindly for her foot. Fingers questing and making sense of things that eyes could not, the Bree girl found that her foot had been caught in the baldric of a sword. Fumbling over it, her hands found the cold hilt of the blade and drew it from its scabbard. This sword was longer than the one that had been lying at her brother's side, and heavier in weight.

The Barrow-wight advanced and Padrien soon realized her folly, for what use was a sword when she could not see what she was attacking, and her foe was a thing that mortal weapons could not harm? The pale eyes drew closer and the evil spirit muttered in a black speech that consisted of hisses and harsh guttural sounds that was ugly upon the ear, and though its voice was old in sound it was also filled with a hatred of all things that could walk free under the Sun. Padrien gulped in the darkness and gripped the sword tighter, though such a thing could do little to help her now.

There was another crash in the darkness and the sound of things being kicked aside and sifted through blindly. The Barrow-wight began to laugh, a horrid laughter that seemed to echo about the dark burial vault and grate rawly on Padrien's nerves. Fear seized her, and she gave a shout and slashed at it blindly with the heavy sword. Nothing seemed to happen when she did this, and the cruel pale eyes of the Wight burned brighter.

Then the ghost bent the entirety of its dark will upon the Bree girl, and Padrien found that she could not look away from the eyes of the Barrow-wight. Dread caught hold of her mind and heart, and the sword fell from her suddenly slack hands and landed on her foot. The blade nicked her toe, but she hardly felt the slight pain and could only stare into the twin orbs of horrid white flame. Her mouth opened and she tried to scream, but her throat was tight and all that came out was a croak of black despair. _This is the end_, she thought, _I and my brother shall die in the dark_. And when she thought these despairing things there was only resignation in her mind, for all hope had fled.

But then suddenly a bright light shone out, and the Barrow-wight shrieked loud and shrill and fled back into the inner chamber of the vault so fast that the wind of its sudden departure stirred Padrien's loosely falling hair. The Bree girl shivered once and felt some of the cold depart from her body, and her mind cleared of the spell of the evil ghost. She looked about and saw Gemon standing in a great pile of treasure, looking in wonder at his hand.

The hand of her brother was glowing, as brightly as a torch. There was no flame and seemed to be no heat – only warm yellow light such as a lantern might make. Padrien blinked and looked again at the boy, for he seemed for a moment to be the son of one of the kings of old, clothed in white and bearing strange powers. But then the Bree girl looked again and saw only her brother Gemon, the bastard son of a Ranger from the North who was standing barefoot in a Barrow and needing to wash his face.

Gemon reached down to his glowing left hand and tugged on one of his fingers, and immediately the Barrow was plunged into darkness. There was a dark hiss from the Barrow-wight, and within a moment the burial vault was lit again with the same warm light radiating from Gemon's hand.

"How did you do that?" Padrien asked in confusion, looking narrow-eyed at her brother's hand as though trying to divine the secret of the strange light.

Gemon looked at her and blinked his blue-grey eyes. He shrugged. "I didn't do anything," he said. "It's the ring. I was searching in the treasure for a sword, and a ring slipped onto my hand and started to glow."

"What ring?" Padrien asked, and walked over to her brother. She took his hand in hers and found it quite cool, for the source of the light made not the slightest bit of heat, and her chilled fingers felt over his. There were many rings on his fingers already, perhaps put there by the Barrow-wight, but only one was so shining with such bright radiance that it nearly hurt the eyes to look upon it.

"Don't draw it off," Gemon warned when his sister's fingers had found the ring, "Or the Barrow-wight will return."

"I won't," Padrien assured him, and looked in wonder at her brother's hand. The ring that he had found radiated light so brightly that it seemed his entire hand was afire, and the base of the third finger from the thumb was so bright it was hard to look directly at it. The place of the strange ring.

Gemon looked about, taking their surroundings in for the first time. The cavern was small, with the ceiling only a few inches above Padrien's head, and the walls and floor were of cold dry dirt. He was wearing a leather belt covered with tiny golden scales, and a necklace of golden discs set with droplets of amber. Armlets studded with beryls and rubies were placed upon his arms, and there were rings on all of his fingers. Indeed, even the glowing ring that had slipped onto his finger was situated above another ring made of heavy gold studded with a large ruby.

But the adornments were a dead man's treasure, not belonging to him nor his sister nor any living being. Angrily, he yanked off the jewelry and hurled it into the heaps of shining things lying piled against the wall, save for the bright ring which he kept upon his finger. Padrien did the same with her own adornments, and then searched in vain for a cloth to tie up her hair.

"Well," Gemon said, looking somewhat more normal without the gold and jewels upon him, "The Wight is gone. How do we get out of here?"

"The door is there," Padrien said, and the boy saw that in the wall of the Barrow was a doorway made of rock, blocked with a slab of stone that fit tightly into its space. It looked very irremovable, but nevertheless the two siblings came and hammered upon it with tight-clenched fists, shoved against it with what strength they possessed, and called out against the cracks as loudly as they could. The stone, however, did not move even slightly and nobody answered their cries.

Moodily, they slid down to the ground and sat with their backs against the stone. "And so we are defeated by a rock," Padrien said bitterly. "A _rock_." She toyed with the hilt of the sword that she had dropped on her foot a few minutes ago, rubbing the pad of her thumb across the smooth, cool steel of the pommel.

The sword itself was for the most part plain, but very well made. Its hilt was wrapped with brown leather cord which had, by some miracle, not rotted over the long years that it had been left lying in the Barrow. It had no crosspiece at the bottom of the hilt. The sword was meant to be used one-handedly, and its blade was etched with runes that Padrien could not read. Strangely enough, it was still very sharp and had not rusted at all during the long years that it had spent in the Barrow-wight's tomb. The scabbard of the sword was made of stiffened, dark brown leather, and crosshatched with silver thread up and down its length. The tip of the scabbard was silver-gilded iron, scratched in some places to show its true metal, and the mouth of the scabbard was much the same. The baldric itself was also of leather, and the links of chain holding it to the scabbard of the sword were iron gilded with silver. It was a fine weapon, a Lord's weapon, and for several long moments Padrien stared down at it and wondered just who the man was that had possessed such a thing.

But then Padrien leaned back against the cold stone with a sigh and let her eyes close. There was no escape from the Barrow. Gemon had bested the Barrow-wight with the light of a magic ring, she herself had stabbed the ghost between the eyes with an ancient blade, and they both had just a few moments ago been wearing more wealth than anything she could have hoped to earn in three lifetimes of work. But Padrien would gladly have traded it all for a chance to breathe the free air again, and be out of this chamber and back in their warm home near the West-gate of Bree.

Her head turned, and she saw that Gemon was sitting with his chin propped on his right hand. The left hand, which bore the glowing ring, was resting upon his knee. He was staring at the dark hole in the wall of the chamber that marked the passageway to the inner room of the burial vault that the Barrow-wight had fled to. Staring, and thinking.

"What is it?" Padrien asked him.

Gemon did not respond for a few moments. "Do you think," he said slowly, "Do you think that there is another exit there?" he asked, and gestured toward the passageway leading to the other chamber.

"If there is, then it will be blocked like this one," Padrien said. "We're trapped here."

"Maybe the doorway will _not_ be blocked," Gemon replied.

Padrien snorted. "Did you not see the way the Barrow-wight fled from the light of your magic ring? It hates the light, and if there was an open doorway then when it was day the sunlight would come in and harm it. If there is a doorway there, it will be blocked."

"Or maybe the Barrow-spirit flees into _this_ chamber when it is day to hide from the sunlight, and the doorway is not blocked there," Gemon replied.

Padrien shook her head. "The ghost did not build this place, and its builders meant for this to be a tomb: a place to go into, not a place to leave. And if the builders left such riches here – " she paused to nudge with her foot a large copper bowl engraved on its outside with an elaborate and extremely detailed hunting scene, and on its inside filled to the brim with a mixture of silver and some gold coins " – then I do not think that they would leave the doorway open for thieves to wander in and take what they would. And if they _did_ leave it open, or a portion of the Barrow's walls caved in after a time, then someone would have found this place before us and emptied it of treasure. So you see, little brother, there is no escape for us."

Gemon shook his head, refusing to be daunted. "Perhaps we can dig our way out," he suggested. "The doorway there may be blocked with earth instead of stone."

"Do you see any shovels lying about?" Padrien shot back, and there was a bite to her words. "There is no way out of this place. We are trapped here."

"If there is no way _out_ than there can be no way _in_ either," Gemon retorted, "There has to be some way, or else the Barrow-wight could not have brought us here."

"Maybe the ghost brought us here by magic. That would certainly explain how it had dressed and bejeweled us."

"Or maybe it used its _hands_ to do so, and there is an exit to this place that it brought us through!"

Padrien shuddered in revulsion, for the thought of those pale, clawed hands taking off her clothes and dressing her was truly repugnant. "Don't say that," she said. "You're using your head for once, and I am not against that – but your hopes are foolish. There is no way out of this place, and we are trapped here forever. The Barrow-wight does not need to kill us with the great sword that it had: starvation will surely claim us soon enough. Metal, dirt, and stone cannot be eaten. We will die here, sooner or later. Perhaps the light from your magic ring will fade, Gemon, or else go out. What then? The Barrow-wight will come again and kill us in the darkness."

"You make it sound as though we are dead already!"

"We _might as well_ be dead already, for all the good that living will do in this dark place!"

"Stop talking like that! I choose to hope for life instead of merely giving up the way you do!"

" 'Giving up' ? Little brother, I have always thought you were a fool, but never this much of one! _There is no hope here!_ We are going to die here but you keep insisting that there is hope for something that cannot be real! Tell me, _little boy_, do you still believe in the fairy-stories that Mother told you?"

_Crack_.

Padrien reeled backwards from the force of the blow and then righted herself as she recovered, a hand going to her bleeding nose. She felt at it cautiously and found that it had not been broken, but the blood still dripped down her nose and over her lips. Angrily, she wiped the red fluid away with the sleeve of her linen dress and then pinched her nose tightly shut.

"I said," Gemon spoke flatly, "For you to stop talking like that." His right hand that he had used to punch her was still leveled and balled into a fist, with a splotch of blood on the knuckles. His blue-grey eyes were hard and narrowed in suspicion, and his mouth was a grim line on his face.

Padrien narrowed her own hazel eyes, and said nothing. She continued pinching her nose shut.

"And now I say," Gemon continued in that same flat voice, "That we are _not_ going to give up and be miserable. We are going to find a way out of this place, and we are going to do it before we starve to death." With those words spoken, he stood up and faced the dark passageway with an expression of determination on his face. Holding his hand out before him, he walked slowly toward the entrance. Padrien found herself getting to her feet and following her brother, holding the sword by its baldric and settling the leather strap over her shoulder to carry. The sword was heavy and unbalanced her somewhat, but she walked steadily after her brother.

At the entrance to the dark tunnel Gemon hesitated a moment, still holding his left hand out before him. The warm yellow light emitted from the strange ring glowed steadily and showed no signs of fading as Padrien feared. It also seemed to give comfort to the boy, for he gazed at it for several moments before heading down the narrow passageway.

Padrien still followed after him, glancing about her uncertainly. The walls of the tunnel were rough and cold to the touch, almost clammy. The floor seemed to slope slightly downward, and if anything the air ahead of them was colder than that which they had left behind. The Bree girl shivered slightly, and found herself wishing for her cloak. Perhaps it was yet lying on the hillside along with the bag of food that she had carried to the Barrow-downs from Bree.

The passageway came to an end, for it was not long, and over the shoulder of her brother Padrien could see a small round chamber. In its center lay a stone slab upon which was carved with runes, and these looked to be of the same tongue and script as those that were carved on the sword that Padrien carried. There was a shield lying at the base of the slab, and the long-bladed sword that the Barrow-wight had carried was beside it on the ground. There was also no doorway that Padrien could see, not even one blocked with stone or earth.

But upon the ceiling there gathered a black mist with a pair of arms and burning eyes. It was hiding in the shadow caused by an overhang in the earth of the ceiling, snarling fitfully down at them. Gemon stepped into the chamber and raised the hand that bore the ring, shining the light upon the Barrow-wight.

The effect was immediate. The evil ghost let out an ear-piercing shriek that sent shivers down Padrien's spine and then tried to make itself smaller and go deeper into its hiding place. Gemon raised his ring higher and stared grimly up at the Barrow-wight as it writhed upon the ceiling, uttering shrieks and screams of pain that echoed about the chamber.

All of a sudden the Wight dove down from its place on the ceiling, boiling toward the passageway leading to the other chamber. Its eyes burned and its hands were reaching toward Padrien's throat. The Bree girl was frozen in place, once more paralyzed and unable to move.

"Elbereth!" Gemon cried as he saw where the Barrow-wight was going, "By Elbereth, you will not have her!" Upon the naming of Varda the Barrow-wight uttered another scream, and this blast of cruel sound went on long after any mortal being would have run out of breath. The ghost stopped short where it was, no more than a foot of distance between it and Padrien, and a cold and bitter wind blew about the chamber. It whipped the robes of the two children and threw Padrien's hair up in a veil to cover her face. Still the scream of the Barrow-wight continued, and Padrien clapped her hands over her ears in much the same manner as her brother. Gradually the noise and the strange wind died, and when the children opened their eyes and removed their hands from over their ears they saw that the Barrow-wight was gone. There was not a trace of it to be found.

There was a small shower of dirt upon the slab, and the crack in the ceiling grew wider and wider. Padrien darted into the chamber and caught hold of her brother's arm, dragging him back into the passageway just before the ceiling caved in and a load of earth fell upon the slab and covered it. From the hole in the ceiling there could be seen a deep blue sky in which the stars and Moon shone, and the smell of fresh air reached their nostrils.

Gemon poked Padrien in the side. "You know what this means?" he asked innocently, looking up at her.

"What?" Padrien asked.

"It means," he said, "That I was right and you were wrong. Again."

Padrien snorted, but nevertheless hugged her brother close for a moment. Then the two of them climbed out of the hole and onto the green earth of the moonlit Barrow-downs. On the ground the siblings discovered a bag of food and a cloak. The bag had been ripped open and the cheese and bread eaten, but the apples had been left untouched and those were devoured. Padrien went back into the Barrow and gathered up a few of the treasures that had been left there, for the Barrow-wight had taken none of the precious things with it when it had vanished.

Eventually Bill Ferny's pony was found, and the trio made their way back to Bree. Two children wearing white linen and shivering from cold, smeared with dirt up to the knees and carrying a cloak full of treasure. One bore a sword and the other had a plain golden ring clenched in one hand.

Aye, that was them. Padrien and Gemon, the children of Lindis.

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><p><span>Yet Another Author's Note:<span> Yes, I realize I have sinned and made another magic ring. /dodges thrown brick/ Argh! Don't kill me yet. Let me quote, at least, and explain why I thought that there could be such a thing without committing Sue-ism:

_"In Eregion long ago many Elven-rings were made, magic rings as you call them, and they were, of course, of various kinds: some more potent and some less. The lesser rings were only essays in the craft before it was full-grown, and to the Elven-smiths they were but trifles__ - yet still to my mind dangerous for mortals. But the Great Rings, the Rings of Power, they were perilous."_

A direct quote from Tolkien himself, the chapter titled "The Shadow of the Past" in the 'Fellowship.


	3. A Dwarf in Bree

**I HAVE FINALLY UPDATED! FEAR ME, PUNY MORTALS... right, sorry, didn't mean to do that. This chapter has a special shout-out to Weatherlibby, my one and only reviewer who definitely deserves a cookie for her troubles /gives cookie/.**

**Disclaimer: Do I look smart enough to invent an entire world, more than five thousand years of its intricate and complicated history, the written _and_ spoken form of at least half a dozen languages, write an entire fantasy trilogy as well as its prequel and several guide-books... no, of course I don't look like that certain someone. Therefore I don't own LOTR, dammit.**

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><p>Nodri looked around. The villages of Men were different from that of Dwarves, for the most part because Men chose to dwell on the open ground instead of tunneling through the insides of a mountain. Here, in Bree, they built their houses from stone on the slope of a large and gently rising hill. Quite a few of the buildings had two stories, actually. Most of the roofs in the village were thatched, but a few had shingles. Likewise, though all had shutters, a small group of the houses had panes of opaque glass fitted into the windows. Some of them had been colored faintly, and were doubtless expensive. The streets were cobbled, winding, and just wide enough for a fairly large wain to pass through the village.<p>

Barely anyone spared Nodri a glance, though a few children gazed at him with curiosity as the dusk deepened and they hurried back to their homes. Not wide-eyed wonder, though, merely a simple and short-lived interest that faded quickly into indifference and forgetting. The people of Bree were more used to travelers that were not of the race of Men.

It had been raining for the better part of the day. Nodri grumbled to himself in annoyance for what might have been the thirtieth time, then tugged his dark red hood a little further over his head. The deep cowl hid his face, but everyone could easily tell that he was a Dwarf. The long, thick, salt-and-pepper beard that reached to his silver belt, as well as his short, stumpy, and broad-shouldered frame gave him away instantly.

Nodri craned his neck and looked about him, holding one hand to his hood to stop it from falling back as he searched. Eventually he saw what he was looking for: the Inn of the Prancing Pony. Through a large archway facing the Road a cobbled courtyard could be seen, with wings on either side and a large, three-storied building on the far end. There were many windows, quite a few of them with the regular clouded glass but just as many with translucent. Warm yellow lamplight glowed behind them in many cases, giving the place a cheery look. There was a tall lamp-post just beside the archway, and a small glass box at its top. Inside, a group of candles burned and stayed safe and dry. Beneath the lamp there swung a large signboard that showed a picture of a fat white pony rearing up on its hind legs.

There was a human boy at the top of the lamp-post, who had apparently climbed up by way of a very tall chair and his own dexterity. He wore a sheepskin vest over a long tunic, belted at his waist with the leather belt typically used by Men, as well as long brown trousers and leather boots. His dark hair was plastered to his skull, and he was obviously replacing the candles in the tall lamp.

The boy looked down and saw the Dwarf, then smiling and waved with one hand. To look at Nodri he had to face into the rain, and a moment later wiped the water from his face with one hand. "Good evening!" he called down, rainwater dripping from his chin and from the bangs of his dark hair into his eyes. "Well, it isn't really all that good," the boy added a moment later, frowning slightly before his grin returned, "But it will be much better once everyone is dry." Nodri grunted in response to the man-child's cheerfulness, then turned and walked through the archway and into the inn-yard, leading his little dun pack-pony behind him.

At present he heard the sound of footsteps behind him, and saw the boy carrying the tall chair into the inn-yard with one hand and holding a handful of candle stubs in the other. The boy nodded and smiled at the Dwarf as he passed, trotting around the inn's stable and vanishing around the back.

"Your pony, Master Dwarf?" someone asked, and Nodri turned to see a dripping halfling with curly brown hair (on his head _and_ on his feet) as well as a white shirt and a yellow vest with wooden toggles. He was wearing a large, oiled leather jacket to protect his clothes from the rain, however, unlike the boy that Nodri had seen earlier.

"Stable it, brush it, and feed it," Nodri said curtly, handing over the lead-rope. The halfling took it with a nod, and then grinned when the Dwarf dug a silver halfpenny out from his belt-pouch and flipped it to the stable hand, then undid the saddle bags and slung them over one shoulder. The halfling nodded affably again, then led the little pony into the stable.

The Dwarf made his way across the courtyard, and saw the boy once more. The lad was wearing fresh clothes and an oiled leather jacket much similar to the halfling's, and carrying two pint mugs full of a steaming liquid into the stable. He didn't seem to notice Nodri, and the halfling stable hand appeared at the wide double doors and took one of the mugs. Nodri assumed that the boy's mother was in charge of the Prancing Pony's kitchen.

Nodri came to the door of the inn and let himself in, looking around. The common room was large, illuminated by candles, lanterns, and the hearth up against the northern wall. There were tables ranged round the walls, and many seats by the fireside. The inn was full, with servers bustling back and forth bearing trays of drinks. Others carried platters of food up the stairs and to the rooms of the guests.

"Seeking a room, Master Dwarf?" someone asked. Nodri looked and saw that there was a halfling bearing a platter of full mugs standing beside him, politely waiting for a reply.

"Yes," Nodri said.

"Wait a moment then, please," the halfling replied, "I see Barliman right over there, and can have him shortly."

The halfling walked away, and Nodri watched as the server spoke to a man with a bald head wearing a white apron. This was Barliman Butterbur, the innkeeper, then. They conversed for a time, and then the halfling departed off to the kitchens, expertly weaving his way through the crush of patrons.

Barliman made his way through the crowd to Nodri, wiping his hands on his own apron. The lamplight gleamed on his bald head. "Barliman Butterbur at your service, Master Dwarf," the innkeeper said.

"Nodri, son of Nordri, at yours and your family's," Nodri replied in a somewhat clipped voice. The words were merely polite nothings that had meant hardly anything at all. The Dwarf stood on the rush-strewn floor of the inn, his wet clothing silently dripping. He had removed his hood and looked decidedly grumpy at not already having a room in which to change into clean, dry clothing.

The innkeeper nodded, seemingly somewhat embarrassed about something. "We seem to be in a bit of a bind here, Master Nodri, if you catch my meaning," the Man said, tapping the side of his nose in a very conspiratorial manner. "There don't appear to be any rooms you available. All full up, the Prancing Pony is. I haven't the foggiest idea of what to do."

Nodri silently took in this information, then nodded curtly. "I would sleep in your stable, then," the Dwarf said.

The innkeeper shook his bald head firmly. "Oh no, Master Nodri," he said, then proceeded to detail his Plan. The Plan was, in fact, that several servants of the Prancing Pony lived in Bree, and were willing to provide a bed for Nodri if he was only planning to stay one night. The conditions were only that Nodri stay with the company until it had dispersed and the servants could go home. Food and drink would be provided, and a place to change into dryer clothes, of course.

Nodri, who absolutely hated sleeping in a stable if there was a warmer, dryer alternative, agreed.

A lanky serving maid escorted him to a secluded place and turned her back as he changed into cleaner, dryer clothes. From there, Nodri was taken back to the common room of the inn. The serving maid introduced herself as Padrien, offered a clumsy curtsy by way of deference to him, and explained that she would be hosting him with her brother and mother at her home in Bree. She then brought out a splendid meal from the kitchens of Prancing Pony. There was hot soup, meat, new loaves of bread, slabs of butter and a blackberry tart. Nodri ate heartily and without complaint. The plain-faced maid excused herself from his company and went back to pouring ale for the rest of the guests, as well as going to and from the kitchens serving food.

Now, Nodri had very good eyes, and a keen memory for faces and names. Tonight, in the Prancing Pony, such things were undoubtedly a benefit. There were four halflings come from the Shire tonight, which was apparently a rare and talked-over event. One went by the name of Underhill, and as there were some halflings in Bree that shared this name they welcomed the Shire halfling as one of their own. They talked, but the halfling known as Underhill became vague with his answers to their questions after a time, and was left alone. Two others from his party were much liked already, for the one known as Took related stories from his homeland. The fourth halfling was not around.

But there was other talk, more serious in nature. The Men spoke of refugees coming North along the Greenway, seeking peace and land to call their own. The Bree-folk weren't exactly pleased with this, as they weren't inclined to share the lands they owned. The halflings (or, to go by their own name for themselves, Hobbits) weren't concerned by this. Men weren't often found inhabiting Hobbit-holes, and usually weren't inclined to beg refuge from one of the Little Folk.

There was also a Ranger in Bree, and when Nodri looked he eventually saw a cloaked man with his cowl drawn up sitting in a dark corner, smoking a long-stemmed pipe and speaking softly and slowly to a boy. The boy that had been replacing the candles in the lamp, outside in the rain, now that Nodri came to think of it. The boy was listening attentively to the Ranger, greyish eyes shining and fixed on the Man's face, which was lost in shadow to the Dwarf. Eventually the strange Man said something to the boy, for the boy smiled in reply and left the table, heading towards the kitchens. From there the Ranger beckoned the one named Underhill to him.

The Hobbit and the Man spoke quietly for a time, with the Hobbit eventually halting the conversation and looking toward his companion, the one named Peregrin Took. This halfling was telling another story, which had distracted the lamp boy from his journey to the kitchen and ensnared him into listening. It was a story about a Hobbit who had grown to the age of 111, which was apparently remarkable. Nodri himself was six-and-seventy, and happy with such a number. There was a description of a birthday party, with enough detail that Nodri could actually _see_ it if he closed his eyes.

Suddenly, Underhill clambered up onto a table and spoke some words, cutting off Master Took smoothly. He spoke, remarking on the kindness that the Bree-folk had shown him, then stopped and seemed a little lost.

"A song! A song!" the lamp boy demanded.

Underhill sang.

It was a good song, about an inn with fine dark ale and the man in the moon, with a catchy tune that everyone seemed to know. Even Nodri, usually too dour for songs and tales, found himself tapping his blunt fingers on the tabletop in time. The song was greeted with much applause, as well as a demand for an encore, which the Hobbit obliged. The lamp boy sang along with the rest, in a surprisingly good voice.

The halfling danced in time to the song on his tabletop, singing as he danced. When he came to the part where the cow jumped over the moon, he himself leaped – but too far. With a crash, he landed on a tray full of mugs (empty, fortunately) and slipped.

And after that, he vanished.

Nodri blinked in surprise, wondering whether it was some trick, then stood so suddenly that the edge of the table hit his sternum and made the dishes clatter and his empty tankard fall over and roll onto the bench. He stood up onto the bench, muttering curses into his beard, and when that failed he eventually stood up on the somewhat wobbly table to better see the place where the halfling Underhill had vanished.

The lamp boy began calling for Barliman, along with several Bree-Hobbits, and then the innkeeper bustled in. The situation was explained, and several of the servants (Nob, Bob, some servers, and Padrien included) came out to see what all the fuss was about. One of the Bree-halflings who went by the name of Mugwort was very loudly insisting that he had seen Underhill vanish into thin air.

Then, suddenly, the Shire hobbit _was_ there again, claiming that he'd been talking to the Ranger – Strider – in the corner. The lamp boy shook his head at this, as though he didn't believe it at all, and Padrien folded her arms across her chest and adopted a suspicious expression. More of the company believed the same, thinking that Underhill was lying but having no other logical explanation to believe.

As for Nodri? He didn't know either. The Dwarf knew strangeness when he saw it, and he _knew_ that he hadn't seen Underhill crawl under the tables to hide near Strider, but he couldn't explain the disappearance. No, he could not. He turned various thoughts over in his mind, but none of his own ideas bore any real weight. He was a Dwarf, and Dwarves dealt with metal and jewels and swords and the making of armor. They work best with things they can see and touch.

After Mr. Underhill's "vanishing act" the company dispersed. Eventually there were none left but Strider, the halflings, Butterbur, and Nodri.

The serving girl and the lamp boy came over to the Dwarf.

"Master Dwarf," Padrien said. "This is my brother, Gemon." She gestured to the boy, who smiled in greeting and offered a shallow bow. "We live near to here, and it is a short walk to the West-gate where we live. Come with us, please." She went to the kitchens and came back with two cloaks, giving one to the lamp boy Gemon and donning the other herself. She pulled the hood up to hide her hair.

"Goodnight, Strider!" Gemon said, waving to the Ranger with what appeared to be his usual friendliness. The Ranger offered him a small smile and a dip of his head in acknowledgement.


	4. The Weeping Woman

**Disclaimer: I own Padrien, Gemon, Lindis, and Nodri, as well as two goats, a cat, and miscellaneous household items. Plus a laptop with a really annoying internet safety function that I am typing this fanfic on. And that is IT. If I owned anything else than I would definitely let you guys (and girls) know about it, but I don't, so... yeah. That's it.  
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><p>Padrien walked quickly in the lead, long legs carrying her easily down the slick cobbled road. Gemon seemed content to walk beside Nodri, full of suppressed good cheer. The trio walked toward the base of Bree hill, eventually coming to a house almost directly beside the tall wooden gate that protected the people of Bree. It was night, and therefore closed. Harry the gatekeeper was sitting in a sheltered alcove as the rain began to slack off, smoking a pipe and leaning back in a chair. He didn't seem to notice the two siblings and their dwarf companion.<p>

Padrien pulled a key out from a pouch at her belt and unlocked the door, then opened it smoothly and stepped inside. Gemon followed her. Nodri was last.

The house had two stories. There was a kitchen, two bedrooms (both upstairs) and a slightly smaller room at one end of the house where the windows would have let in the afternoon sun very well if the clouds had been kinder and it had been earlier in the day.

"Would you care for a bath, Master Dwarf?" Padrien asked with what seemed to be her usual chill politeness.

"Yes," the Dwarf replied, looking over the room they had entered to. It was the kitchen. There was a large hearth, and a stone-topped table with four wooden chairs grouped around it. Bundles of drying and dried herbs hung from the ceiling rafters, adding their own scent to the smell of cooking meat and bread that filled this room of the house. There were cabinets set into the walls, as well as cupboards and pantries. A yellow-eyed cat regarded the Dwarf haughtily before getting to its feet and padding away soundlessly. It was homily, though not truly home (a dwarfish home wouldn't have windows or wooden walls) and seemed a decent enough place.

Padrien nodded to Gemon, and the boy obediently brought down a wooden tub from its hook on the wall and set it in front of the fire. He took several kettles and hung those from the iron rod that ran across the hearth, above the flames of the fire. He took a bucket and exited through another door leading behind the house, and returned shortly with water. The full bucket he poured into the heating kettle on the fire, then went out to get more water.

Padrien took some soap wrapped in greasepaper out from a cupboard and set it beside the tub, which was still empty.

There was a sob from down the hall.

Padrien stopped what she was doing and looked in the direction of the noise. It came from the small room where the windows were, down the hall and off to the right. The young woman sighed and straightened, casting Nodri a glance before walking towards the sound. Nodri, somewhat curious, followed.

The small room truly was small, fitted with a loom that had a half-finished tapestry attached to it showing the forging of the sword that could only be Narsil. There was a padded bench next to the largest of the windows, and candles burned in alcoves on the wall. A woman was sitting on the floor, much older than Padrien or Gemon, crying softly with her head in her hands. "They're gone," she kept whispering to herself. "They're gone and I can't find them." Her hair was long and white as snow, plaited in a long braid running down her back. Her dress was soft blue to match her eyes, with a girdle of darker blue cloth embroidered with white vines covered with delicate yellow blossoms around her waist. There were crow's feet at the corners of her eyes, and lines around her mouth.

"Mother?" Padrien said, and for the first time in Nodri's experience she seemed uncertain. "I'm here, Mother. You haven't lost me. Nor Gemon."

"Padrien?" The woman's head rose, and her large blue eyes focused on her daughter. "I keep searching. In... in my dreams I look for your father, and Gemon's, but I can never... I can never find them. I'm sorry, child. Padrien, please forgive me. I'm sorry. I can't find them."

Padrien knelt on the floor beside the weeping woman and gently embraced her. "Shh, Mother. There is no need to... search. I'm sure that my father will come back some day. And Gemon's father as well." She looked up at Nodri and mouthed the word '_go_' to him. The Dwarf got the message, nodded, and left down the hallway. Several moments later Padrien and the old weeping woman came through the kitchen, Padrien speaking softly to her and escorting her up the stairs to a bedroom. Gemon, who was in the process of bringing in another bucket of water, paused in the doorway and watched solemnly. This was not a new occurrence, Nodri deduced.

When Padrien came back down the stairs her face could have been carved from stone. She went to the hearth and stared at the wall above it, to where a sword in its scabbard hung above the mantelpiece from slender hooks. Gemon had finally finished filling up the kettles, which now had nothing to do but heat the water they contained.

Padrien turned away and vanished up the stairs again. Gemon quickly pulled out a pipe and a pouch of tobacco, stuffing the pipe and lighting it with a burning sliver of wood from the fire. Raising the pipe in a toast to the Dwarf, who had watched the entire procedure, he vanished out the back door again. Outside, there was a sheltered porch and a small bit of land covered in scraggly grass. Two spotted nanny goats were sheltering on the porch, and one came over to nibble at the boy's tunic when he sat down beside them. Gemon smoked outside and Nodri sat inside, thinking.

Nodri was a quiet Dwarf with good eyes, which is to say that he did a lot of thinking about the things that he saw around him and ended up being quite perceptive as a result. The weeping woman was Padrien's mother, obviously, and she spoke in an accent that was not native to Bree or any of the lands near it. She was also sick, though in the head rather than the body. And it seemed that Padrien and Gemon were only half siblings, sharing the same mother but not the same father.

Nodri squinted at the sword above the mantelpiece. It looked to be of good making, old but well-cared for, and the silver gilt made it look worthy of a lord. So what was it doing here, in the house of two children and a weeping madwoman? Were the children thieves that stole from travelers? Murderers? There was something about Padrien that hinted of a cold heart, though it seemed impossible for Gemon to commit such a crime. The boy was too sweet-natured. Perhaps it was just the heirloom of one the lost fathers, the ones that the weeping woman claimed to be searching for in her dreams. But still...

Something was very strange here. Nodri resolved to sleep with his axe near to hand, just in case.

Padrien came down the stairs and tested the water in the kettles. Deeming them ready, she poured them into the tub so that there were a few inches of water inside of it. "I won't be coming down the stairs for half an hour, Master Dwarf," the young woman said blunting, meaning that she was giving him a half hour of privacy. "Enjoy your bath." She left as soon as she came, and Nodri found himself pondering the sword and the serving maid again.

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><p><strong>Notes: It feels kinda strange, to make a young teenage character into a smoker. Smoking <em>does<em> seem to be commonplace in Bree, and since no-one knew it was harmful I guess kids would be allowed to do it.**


	5. Making Plans

**Disclaimer: I threw a penny into a wishing well and wished to own the rights to LOTR. Then, my mom told me that wishing wells didn't work. Now, I'm short of a penny and still don't own an amazing fantasy trilogy.**

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><p>Padrien came down the stairs after half an hour had passed, just as she'd said, to find the tub emptied out in the back yard and Nodri combing tangles out of his beard. The soap had been wrapped in its paper and put back in its cupboard.<p>

"There is a spare bedroom upstairs, next to my mother's," Padrien said. "You can sleep there for the night. Gemon and I shall sleep on the floor in her room, so she shan't trouble you."

Nodri nodded to show he had heard, then tucked the comb back into the saddlebags he had brought from the Prancing Pony. "Why does the woman weep?" he asked.

Padrien hesitated a moment, folding her arms across her chest in what seemed to be her "thinking" position and staring at a wall above the Dwarf's head as she gathered her thoughts. "She's mad," the serving maid said at last. "She sees things that aren't there and believes that her husbands are alive. They aren't. My father died when I was a small child, and Gemon's father went missing before my brother was born. He never came back and... we assume he's dead as well."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Nodri said in his gruff voice.

"Don't be," Padrien snapped angrily. "It was never any of your..." she trailed off, the anger fading swiftly as good sense overcame it. Her shoulders slumped, then straightened again as the maid forced strength into them. "I apologize for being short with you," she said, reverting to her cold courtesy. Gemon came inside, knocking the burnt tobacco out of his pipe and tucking it safely out of his sister's sight, beneath his shirt.

The Dwarf waved the young woman's apology away. "How did you come by that sword?" he asked.

Padrien glanced at the blade hanging above the fireplace, seeming to hesitate. Gemon answered instead, sitting down at the table beside the Dwarf and grinning. "Well, some years ago I... ah... _borrowed_ Bill Ferny's pony (you wouldn't have met him, fortunately) and took some supplies from the kitchen and went out to the Barrow-downs for the day. It's a hilly green place with lots of standing stones, and there were rumors of treasure. I spent all day looking and found _nothing_. Padrien came looking for me when she learned I was missing and not doing my chores.

"When night fell a mist came out of the valleys among the hills and with it came... creatures. The spirits of the dead, since the hills beneath the standing stones are barrows where the old kings and warriors buried their fallen heroes. Padrien and I were captured by one. The barrow was filled with treasure, and that sword happened to be one piece of it."

"And how did you get out again?" Nodri asked.

"The only reason we're alive now is because Padrien brought a lamp and oil for it with her. The Barrow-wights hate light of any sort, so with the light it left us alone. We dug our way out and escaped." Gemon shrugged at the end of the tale, as though to say that it was nothing and he did something similar every week.

Nodri took all of the boy's information in solemnly, then nodded. "You were very lucky," he said. "May I see the sword?

Padrien hesitated a moment, then reached up and brought down the sword from its hooks. She didn't need to reach very far, as she was tall for a woman. Holding the scabbarded sword, she set it on the table in front of Nodri. She stood, hovering almost like a protective mother would hover over a child, as the Dwarf examined the blade.

Nodri drew the sword. The blade was long and shining, polished and oiled and sharpened until it had an edge like a razor. There were Cirth runes along the blade. The Dwarf traced them with a blunt finger, curious.

"Do you know what the runes say?" Padrien asked.

"_Dago din maegang_," Nodri read aloud.

"What does that mean?" Gemon asked.

Nodri shrugged. He didn't speak Sindarin, and had just been reading what was on the blade.

Padrien took the sword from him and sheathed it, then hung it up by the hooks above the fireplace. "Your bedroom is prepared if you want to sleep, Master Nodri," she said, busying herself with banking the fire for the night. Better to do that than start one anew in the morning.

Gemon sat at the table with Nodri. "Where are you bound?" he asked.

"Imladris," Nodri answered.

Gemon's eyes shone. "We are traveling there as well! On the morrow Padrien and I were planning to set out with Mother. Perhaps we could travel togeth – "

"Gemon!" Padrien said sharply. "Leave Master Nodri in peace."

Nodri shook his shaggy head. "It seems a wise enough notion," he said in reply. It had been lonely on the long road to Bree. He hadn't heard the sound of any voice save his own for weeks on end sometimes, and the Wilds were growing more dangerous. A party of four as well as a pony might help dishearten the wolves. So far the beasts had not come closer than a stone's throw to the edge of Nodri's axe, but the Dwarf still found it unnerving to sit in the dark with only a fire and his pack-pony for company against the wolves.

Padrien hesitated. "We... thank you, then. Gemon has purchased a horse to carry Mother and what belongings we will take with us."

Nodri nodded. "Good night to you," he said, getting up from his seat at the table and walking up the stairs. The first doorway on the upstairs hallway revealed itself to be a small, empty bedroom. There was a single-person bed against the wall, with sheets that smelled slightly musty and a thick coverlet. There was a nightstand, a washbasin, a chest for clothes, as well as extra chairs and a cleverly-jointed folding table. This was part bedroom, part storage room, then. Nodri climbed into bed and pulled up the covers, setting his axe down beside him. Despite the friendliness of the children, and their apparent honesty, he was taking no chances.

Several moments passed, and he heard Padrien and Gemon coming up the stairs, going past his room to the second bedroom. Gemon was speaking softly, but the closed door of the bedroom Nodri was in prevented the Dwarf from catching any words.

After what seemed a long while, he fell asleep.

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><p><strong>The Sindarin words on Padrien's sword I got from a very, very nice SindarinQuenya translation site known as "Merin Essi ar Quenteli!"** **Yes, a translation will be provided when Paddy & Co. meet some elves, but if you really wanted to find out the meaning of the sword-runes _now_ then I guess you could go and look it up there. Just saying. Also, all of the names for my characters I got from that site, since it provides time/location accurate names. Middle Earth is complex enough that I actually need to do that XP.**

**Sorry for rambling. Please review. Hugs to Weatherlibby and themask77****.**


	6. Setting Out

**Disclaimer: I own Spot, Dot, Bluebell, a cat, Gemon, Padrien, Lindis, Nodri, Marian Butterbur, and a girl named Violet so far. The entire Lord of the Rings trilogy? Nope. Not mine.  
><strong>

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><p>Padrien came awake when she heard Gemon quietly dressing in a corner. She was asleep on a pallet on the floor in her mother's room. The young woman stood slowly, stretching out some of the soreness and stiffness that came from sleeping on what might as well have been the floor, then went to the windows and opened the shutters.<p>

The sun was rising. It was dawn. Gemon whispered a good morning to her before lacing up his boots and slipping out the bedroom door. They had agreed on this plan several weeks ago. Gemon would go and get the horse ready, which was stabled in a farmer's barn a few miles out from Bree. He would eat breakfast on the way there, which would be some apples. Padrien would pack their supplies and get everything ready while their mother, Lindis, slept. It was easier that way. Though Padrien felt guilty for admitting it, even to herself, the woman would be more of a hindrance than a help. She was too prone to breaking down into a crying fit and getting in the way of things.

Padrien dressed as well, since she had stripped down to a wool shift for the night. Quietly, she pulled out a pair of saddlebags from under the bed and began packing clothes into them, as well as a comb that would be shared among them all. Slipping out of the room just as quietly as her half-brother, she took her bags and quietly began packing food: apples, blocks of salty cheese, skins of water and one of strong wine to help Lindis sleep at night, as well as twice-baked bread and hardened crackers. A pouch of tobacco went into Gemon's pack for the boy to smoke on the way, since Padrien knew that he was leaving everything to her and wouldn't think to bring any himself. There was also a cook-pot and a pan with handles that folded inwards, a pouch with shreds of oily birch bark for kindling as well as a flint and steel shards... and more things. Padrien believed in being prepared.

There was the sound of heavy boots on the stairs behind her, and when Padrien turned she saw Nodri standing at the entrance to the kitchen. "Good morning," she said. _Dago din maegang_. The words seemed to echo in her mind. She doubted that she would be forgetting them soon.

The Dwarf grunted. Padrien unbanked the fire and added wood, then began making fried bread for breakfast. "Could you watch this while I milk the goats?" she asked Nodri. The Dwarf nodded blearily (he didn't seem to be much of a morning person) and squatted down beside the fire. Padrien took two buckets and went outside, finding Spot and Dot waiting for her expectantly, their udders heavy.

Milking the goats was a contest. It was _always_ a contest. Before she had gotten a job at the Prancing Pony, Padrien had helped farmers shear sheep as well as helping with the lambing in the spring for small fees. It required small hands (which she'd once had before she'd started growing in all the wrong places) and clever fingers to untangle the lambs inside their mothers and help get them out into the world. Shearing didn't require small hands, it required you to hold down smelly animals that very much didn't want to be held down and cutting off their fur. During those jobs Padrien had learned that sheep were very, _very_ dumb.

Goats, on the other hand, were not dumb. They had their own sort of cunning and weren't afraid to use it. And _every time_ Padrien milked Spot and Dot, they tried to put a hoof into the milk bucket. Sometimes they managed it. The work was boring and required hands, not a mind, so Padrien was in the habit of daydreaming. Sometimes she didn't see what the horrible creatures were doing until it was too late. And when they did, if you shouted and cursed and hit them for ruining a whole bucket of milk, they would snigger in their evil goat language and would have Won. The trick was to, as they were very deliberately raising their leg to perform the deed, to raise the leg _higher_ and make the goats lose their balance and stumble a bit. Then, you will have Won, and can snigger at them.

Padrien Won with both Spot and Dot, though it was a near thing with the latter goat. They never made a contest of it with Gemon.

When Padrien came back with a bucket and a half of fresh milk she found Nodri cooking fried bread. He had made a dozen pieces so far and was eating one himself while he fried another piece. The Dwarf nodded to her in casual greeting as she came back into the house, and accepted a stone cup of fresh milk. Padrien got cups of milk set down on the table for herself, Lindis, and Gemon, then left the house and took the buckets of milk up Bree hill to the Prancing Pony.

Marian Butterbur, Barliman's wife, was making the morning bread and doing all of the things that needed doing early in the morning. She accepted the milk happily, paying a silver penny for the full bucket and promising to return it later on, empty. Padrien quietly had a word with the innkeeper's wife, about how Spot and Dot would need caring for in the weeks to come. The bargain was that the two nanny goats would be Marian's to feed and care for for as long as Padrien and Gemon were gone, but also that the Inn could keep all of the milk they gained during that time. Marian agreed, and Padrien went back home.

By the time she got back Lindis was sitting in the kitchen, eating a thick slice of fried bread at the table and drinking milk. She seemed more aware of mundane things than usual, which was always a good thing.

"Are we going somewhere, Padrien?" she asked.

"Yes, Mother. We're going to Imladris."

Lindis smiled. "It has been a long time since I've gone home to Lossarnach. Will Ioreth be waiting for me? She was when I left with Tris."

Padrien's heart sank, and she silently shook her head to herself. As Lindis' mind-sickness had grown worse, the young woman had eventually learned not to try and argue with her mother. The woman simply would not – or maybe could not – hear her.

"As you say," she said instead.

Several minutes later Gemon came in through the back door, breathless and with his pipe between his teeth. "I have the horse," he said. "Her name is Bluebell. And... Master Nodri, something happened during the night. All of the mounts in Butterbur's stables are gone, your pony included." Puffs of smoke left his mouth as he talked. Padrien raised an eyebrow at him, and the boy quickly took his pipe away from his mouth.

"Gone?" Nodri asked, standing up from his seat at the table. At the mention of the word Lindis began to cry again. Padrien went over to comfort her.

Gemon nodded, his eyes darting over to his mother briefly before returning to the Dwarf. "Gone. Something spooked all of them into running. Don't ask me what it was, for I certainly am not one to know."

Swearing softly in his own tongue, Nodri left the house and hurried up the Hill to the Inn to investigate the truth of this. Gemon picked up the full packs from where they had been resting by the door and took them outside. Once Lindis had calmed down (this took some minutes) Padrien followed her half-brother outside.

The horse was a huge, pale, dappled draught animal that seemed old but serviceable. Someone had hacked off half her tail, and she was blind in one eye. Spot and Dot were milling around her legs, and the mare was standing carefully still so as not to bump into them. Gemon was feeding her apples and talking to her in the nonsense language he used with animals as he loaded their packs behind the saddle that Lindis was going to ride in.

"Hallo, Padrien," Gemon said when he saw her. The sun had risen more fully now, and it was showing itself to be a warm autumn day. He stroked Bluebell's nose. "She's as gentle as a lamb. Mother should have no trouble from her." he announced, meaning the horse. Padrien nodded, then went back inside and took down the sword from its place on the wall. Coming back outside, she tucked it carefully out of sight beneath a saddle blanket.

"Do you think that we'll find trouble on the Road?" Gemon asked, watching her.

"I don't know," Padrien answered, truthfully. "Can you guess at what scared the horses in Barliman's stables?"

Gemon hesitated a moment. "You know how I always replace the candles in the Pony's lantern? Do you remember, I did that before talking to Strider? When I was out there, a little after Master Nodri had come to the Pony, I felt... something. Something horrible. It went cold and I wanted to hide, or run away, or be anywhere but outside in the dark. The horses were skittish afterwards, when I came back inside. I think..." he licked his lips, "I think that maybe a Wight came from the Downlands to Bree."

"But there was light," Padrien said softly, remembering a cold dark hole in the ground and the light of a magic ring.

Gemon nodded. "There was. I was standing right next to it. Nevertheless, I felt... something evil. Maybe it came back later and frightened the horses so badly that all of them ran." He shivered slightly, though the day was quickly warming, and looked about him anxiously for a moment. Bluebell swung her huge head around and nuzzled the side of his head.

"Think no more of it," Padrien said at last, forcing a smile on her face for her brother's sake and patting his back gently. Secretly, she was unnerved. Wights never left the Downs. If they could have, there would have been more tales of them in Bree. What kind of Wight would leave its tomb and cairn? Or was this not a Wight at all, but something... worse?

The woman shivered and turned back to the house. She met Nodri in the kitchen, scowling. The Dwarf had been paid six silver pennies from Barliman in recompense for his lost pony, but he would have preferred the pony to the silver. When Padrien pointed out that his bags could be carried on Bluebell, he brightened up a bit. Gemon, with a teenage boy's hunger, ate what remained of the fried bread. Padrien took two slices and contented herself with that, and once she had eaten began washing the breakfast dishes in the bucket of water that Gemon brought her.

"Mother, we're leaving now," Padrien said softly as the older woman finished her milk.

Lindis nodded and continued staring at a fixed point on the wall. Padrien gently took her arms and helped her rise to her feet. The old woman felt too light, too thin. Was she eating enough?

"Where are we going?" Lindis asked.

"Imladris," Padrien repeated patiently.

"I want to see Ioreth again," the woman said. Padrien nodded and steered her out of her house, and with Gemon's help mounted her in Bluebell's high saddle. The boy took the lead rein and led the horse out from the yard and onto the road that ran through Bree, coming to the crossings-place and taking the Great East Road that ran towards Rivendell.

"Where're you going, Paddy?" someone asked her.

"Rivendell. The Elf-home."

"What about you, Gem?"

"Same place."

Gemon's sweetheart, a young lady a year older than him named Violet, walked beside them all through Bree holding the boy's hand. They spoke softly together. Padrien couldn't hear their whispered words, but didn't really care to. If Nodri could, then he was of the type to not let on that he understood. When they came to the end of Bree-hill Violet stopped and released Gemon's hand, standing there solemn-faced in the road. She was a short girl, willowy, with long brown hair and large brown eyes. Gemon looked back over his shoulder and waved to her. Violet waved back, then burst into tears and ran back into the village.


	7. Because I Must

**Disclaimer: I own nothing save my OCs. Really.**

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><p>The day was pleasant going. It was warm, with few clouds in the sky and a bit of a breeze. Bluebell was a sweet horse that was content to go wherever Gemon led her and at whatever pace the boy set. Nodri walked beside them, the very image of the stoic Dwarf. Padrien twined her fingers in Bluebell's mane and walked.<p>

Lindis broke down into crying fits occasionally, and asked after her dead husbands and once mistook Padrien for her sister Ioreth. She never needed to be strapped into the saddle, however, or carried, though she did walk for a few miles that day before resuming her seat in Bluebell's saddle.

Gemon told jokes and stories that he had heard at the 'Pony back in Bree, and sang a few verses of a Sindarin song that one of the Rangers had taught him. He didn't know what the words meant, but they were beautiful enough that Lindis asked for an encore. Nodri was eventually persuaded into telling tales of his homeland in the North on the other side of the Misty Mountains.

As the evening was falling around them the travelers made camp a hundred yards from the Road. Gemon tended Bluebell, Nodri made the fire, and Padrien tended Lindis. The older woman had, like a child, complained of her thighs hurting, which was a common ache for people who rode horses rarely. Padrien drew her away to a quiet place in the Chetwood, which bordered the Road, and massaged her thighs gently until Lindis said that the ache was lessened. Padrien's own feet ached from walking all day, but there was no point in complaining. Dinner was cheese, bread, and dried meat. Padrien made tea.

"We should keep watches," Nodri said, sitting around the campfire with the two children of Men and the older woman as the sky darkened. "I will go first."

"Gemon next, and I shall be last," Padrien said. Gemon didn't argue.

"The dawn watch is the hardest," the Dwarf pointed out. "When you finish your watch you will have the whole day ahead of you.

"I know," the young woman said simply.

So it was. When night had fallen and Lindis was tucked safely into her bedroll, Padrien and Gemon bedded down. The ground was hard and seemed to leech the warmth from them. They could turn their backs to the fire and so warm them, but their fronts would be cold. If they faced the fire, their backs would be cold. They were camped in a grove of rowan trees, and there was a root poking into Gemon's back. It was hard to sleep. They did manage it, after a time, though. Padrien was curled next to Lindis, her cloak forming a blanket and her feet tucked under her bedroll. None of them had bothered taking their shoes off. Gemon lay sprawled on his back, face turned towards the fire and snoring softly, one hand clutching something that was strung on a necklace around his neck.

Nodri sat with his back against the tree, watching them all and listening. An owl hooted and a fox prowled near once, but that was all. When he became tired he paced around the fire. The moon rose high in the sky.

Gemon awoke to Nodri shaking him. "Wha... what is it?" he asked blearily, raising himself up on his elbows and looking around. Padrien and Lindis were still asleep and the fire was burning low.

"Your watch, boy," Nodri said quietly. The Dwarf's eyes glinted in the red light of the fire, and the shadows made his craggy face look almost sardonic. Gemon nodded and watched as the Dwarf bedded down on his own bedroll, and was soon snoring.

The boy sat on his bedroll for a time in front of the slowly dying fire, watching the few short flames. It was more embers and coals and than anything else now. Keeping watch was _boring_. There was nothing to keep him awake. He propped his chin on his fist and for a long while his eyelids drooped. The boy fought a yawn and eventually gave into it. Slowly, slowly, his head sunk down.

_Crack_.

Gemon jumped and nearly fell over, looking around wildly for a moment until his eyes found the source of the noise: a rotten branch that had snapped and fallen. They were not under attack. Feeling slightly foolish, Gemon got to his feet and slowly woke up as he paced around the perimeter of their small camp. The wind had been pleasant during the day, but now it was chill. The boy felt gooseprickles spread over his skin, and shivered once before wrapping his cloak around himself.

"Nothing is going to come at us tonight," Gemon muttered to himself. When the sun had still been in the sky it had seemed a fine idea to set watches. Gemon hadn't argued with Padrien's decisions. His older sister had been dictating most of his choices in life – more often than not better than Gemon could have – since they had been children. Setting watches was a sensible decision, anyway. He had agreed with her, albeit silently. Now, in the dark of night with his companions asleep and he himself wishing he was asleep, Gemon felt more annoyed than anything else. He rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand and yawned again.

The boy wandered, collecting branches and tossing them into the fire. An hour passed, during which Gemon spent the time pacing and singing softly to himself. He grew cold again and sat down in front of the fire, warming himself. He pulled his cloak around himself like a sleeper would a blanket, staring into the flames. His hand, unbidden, went to the plain golden ring that hung on a string around his neck. _I will never be entirely surrounded by darkness_. Resisting the temptation to put it on (what if Nodri or Lindis awoke?) Gemon took his hands away and held them in front of the flames to warm them.

The bastard boy was still tired. He yawned again and propped his chin on his fist. Once more, his eyelids began drooping. Once more, his head sank down upon his chest. His eyelids closed entirely. This time, a branch did not snap and startle him into wakefulness.

Gemon slept.

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><p>Padrien awoke a few hours before the coming of the dawn, in the grey time when there is enough light to see by but the sun cannot yet be glimpsed on the horizon. She rose and stretched, and saw Gemon sleeping in front of the dying fire, sitting down. <em>He fell asleep<em>, Padrien thought. She wasn't sure whether to be annoyed at him or sympathetic. She had, after all, gotten most of a full night's sleep because of his negligence...

The young woman decided not to trouble her half brother, and stirred the coals of the fire with a stick. She took a cooking pot and filled it with water, then set it on the coals. Water for tea.

At this point, Padrien hesitated and looked about the sleepers. Lindis' sleep was, as ever, fitful, the woman's brow scrunched and her face set in a frown. The older woman stirred slightly, mumbled a protest at something in her dream, then subsided back into sleep. She was using the saddle she had ridden in for a pillow. Nodri was snoring loudly and seemed dead to the world. Gemon was the same, except that he was not as noisy as the Dwarf.

Padrien walked over to where Bluebell had been hobbled. The horse whickered softly in greeting to her and lipped at the sleeve of her dress. The young woman spent a few moments stroking the horse's nose and untangling a few knots in the thick white mane. Gemon was right, Bluebell _was_ a very sweet creature. Even Padrien, who wasn't all that fond of animals as a rule, liked the aging draft horse. The young woman cast a glance over her shoulder at the sleepers, then went to where the excess baggage had been placed by Gemon and found the sword.

Padrien simply held it for a few moments, running her fingers over the silver thread that had been crosshatched over the shining dark brown leather of the scabbard. She felt a small pang of guilt, as she always did, like a naughty child caught doing something she shouldn't. Fighting was a man's affair, and female warriors were practically unheard of. Only in the tall tales that the Rangers had told Gemon did women go to war, and even then only rarely.

_Dago din maegang_. The words came to her, unbidden as they always did, a soft whisper in her mind. What did they mean? Had Maegang been the owner of the sword, or had his name been Dago instead? Who had laid the sword to rest in the Barrow on the Downs when the man inside had died? His brother? His lord? His friend? His father, sister, mother, grandfather, uncle, wife? She didn't know. There were so many things that Padrien didn't know. She drew the sword, and the blade shone in the pre-dawn light.

"Dago din maegang," Padrien whispered. The words tasted like magic. Nodri's eyes opened and fastened on the plain young woman holding a sword.

Padrien walked a short distance from camp, no more than twenty or so feet. She placed her feet and closed her eyes, feeling slightly foolish with herself. She could _remember_ the movements, somewhat, remember the long-limbed Ranger man moving her brother's stick-like child's limbs into place when he was no more than eight and she thirteen, trying to teach him a bit of swordplay as a joke with two of his comrades watching and laughing as her brother had fumbled about. She had stood in the shadows with a bucket in her hand. No-one had seen her. But she had watched, and remembered. Place the feet like _this_, hold the sword in one hand, like _this_, then swing _this_ way...

Nodri watched the Bree woman move about, her eyes tightly closed, swinging the sword. It was almost a drill, of sorts, and almost a dance at the same time. She repeated many of the movements and slid her feet into different places, muttering to herself, moving with a strange sort of grace that only fierce concentration on a single task gave to her. If she had been doing more of the swordwork _correctly_ it would have looked better.

The Dwarf continued watching Padrien for a time as the dawn slowly came upon their little came at the edge of the Chetwood. After a time the woman stopped and picked up the scabbard from where she had placed it on the ground, sheathing the sword and placing it back with the rest of their gear, near to Bluebell the horse. It was only when she came back to the fire and gently shook her brother awake did Nodri sit up and pretend that he had seen nothing.

"Did you sleep well?" Padrien asked.

"Well enough," Nodri said.

"There's tea for breakfast, and cram," the young woman replied, going over to the kettle of water, which was boiling merrily. She took four tin cups and dipped them into the pot, adding tea leaves to each cup and setting them down on the ground to cool. Gemon looked around himself, then groaned and put his head in his hands. "I fell asleep," he said.

All of the commotion caused Lindis to wake. The elder woman sat up, looking around wildly and not seeming to know where she was. Padrien went over and assured her that she was safe, then started braiding the woman's long white hair into a neat plait.

The woman's blue eyes came to rest on Nodri. "A Dwarf," she said, acting as though she had never seen him before. Nodri got to his feet and bowed stiffly. "Nodri at your service!" he said. The woman smiled and laughed delightedly, as though he had put on a show purely for her amusement. Nodri was not amused at her merriment, and scowled.

Padrien shot the Dwarf an apologetic look, and Lindis' laughter subsided into chuckles. When she smiled, she looked years younger. In her prime, she would have been better described as handsome than beautiful. Now, with white hair, if she had been of sound mind she could have managed regal with little difficulty. Padrien resembled her slightly, the high cheekbones and eagle's beak of a nose on a long face, but the thin lips were all her own, as was the pale brown hair and freckles.

The four ate and broke camp. Nodri extinguished the fire with the leftover water in the kettle and kicked the ashes aside. Gemon got Bluebell ready, and Padrien braided her hair and prepared Lindis. They set out shortly after as the sun rose.

With no-one mentioning Gemon's failed watch the boy quickly got over his embarrassment and began chattering. Nodri was persuaded to tell a story of Durin the Deathless and the founding of Moria, or Khazad-dûm as he called it. Gemon responded by chanting the first five verses of the tale of Tinúviel, and so it became a story telling contest that lasted until midmorning, where everyone's voice grew hoarse save Lindis'. Even Padrien had joined in, telling of the fall of Gil-Galad. They stopped for lunch and ate apples and drank clear cold water from a stream, then continued on their way. The weather was still good and they seemed to be making good time. Nodri had warned that it would be almost thirty days to Imladris, and Padrien was praying that the weather would hold. Rain was the _last_ thing they needed.

The day progressed with more talking back and forth. By the end of the day Padrien had learned that Nodri had traveled from the mountain of Erebor on an errand to Imladris that was "of a private nature" and wouldn't be disclosed. Nodri had learned that Gemon was a bastard. It didn't seem to trouble him much. They made camp for the night once again. This time, Gemon was picked for first watch, Nodri for second, and Padrien for the dawn's watch.

Gemon did not fall asleep again.

When Nodri's watch ended the Dwarf did not sleep. Instead, he watched as Padrien stopped the fire from going out and paced around the camp in silence, looking always to the east for the first glimmers of grey light that heralded the dawn. Finally, when the light was sufficient, Padrien went over to where Bluebell was and fed the mare an apple, whispering to her with the words too softly-spoken for Nodri to hear. The young woman of Bree moved on and once more picked up the sword.

Padrien, as ever, held the sword and looked down at it for a few moments. A sword was power. So much power. Power to kill, to cause harm to others... but also to defend those you love, and yourself, from any enemy that dared show itself... _so long as you knew how to use it_. Which, whenever Padrien dwelled on the bitter truth, she didn't. Not truly.

"No-one would teach a woman to wield a sword." That was the truth of it. So she had to teach herself, as improper as the method might seem. Padrien closed her eyes and swung.

_Clang_.

The young woman's eyes flew open and widened in astonishment, and she stumbled backwards. Nodri was standing in front of her, having blocked the stroke of her sword with a knife. He was standing there, a stumpy figure with his usual scowl on his face.

"You know how to move your feet," the Dwarf said grudgingly, "But you're slow, and holding your sword wrong."

"I-I am?" Padrien said, a flush painting her face red. The Dwarf nodded and the red flush deepened. Nodri walked over to her and took the sword from her hand, sheathing it and putting it back in the place that Padrien had picked it up from. He wandered a distance and came back with two long branches.

"Why do you want to learn the sword?" the Dwarf demanded.

"To defend myself."

"Liar. Tell the truth."

There was silence for several long moments. Padrien wracked her brains. At last, she spoke: "Because, I..." _Because Lindis' mind started breaking as soon as it became clear that Gemon was a bastard with no father to care for him. Because I was more of a mother than a sister to my brother and I never had time to be a child because I was always taking care of someone in our little broken family. Because I don't want Gemon to ever have to become a fighter himself and lose his sweetness. Because I've protected my family all my life and news from the North and South of Bree speaks of danger that I fear I will eventually meet. Because I want to be able to protect my brother and my poor mad mother. Because I have to. Because I must._

Nodri watched the young woman's face and listened to the confusing explanation that she gave him in silence, then nodded. "I know little of the sword and much of the axe, but I'll teach you what I know," he said, then tossed her one of the branches. He showed her how to block and how to cut, parry, and stab. Then he made her whack at trees in the exact way that he had shown her until the sun had risen fully and Padrien's arms ached.

She had never felt better.

* * *

><p><strong>As a side note, Bluebell is modeled on a real horse breed known as "Percheron". On a note even more to the side, my great-great uncle owned two Percherons which he beat with a stick. Eventually, one of them kicked him in the head and killed him. I believe that this is called irony.<strong>

**Look at the sign. It says, "Please feed the author". Translated, that means, "please leave a review so that the author will keep uploading chapters."  
><strong>


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